Chris Lansdell's Birding & Nature Diary

Success at Winterton! 21 August 2019

After failing at Winterton on Saturday I was keen to return for another crack at Southern Emerald Damselfly. New Norfolk odonata don't come along every day and it's a long time since I saw the species on Cliffe Marshes in Kent.

Reaching the favoured pool at about 09.30 there wasn't a huge amount of odonata activity and I'd had just 2 Chiffchaffs and 3+ Stonechats on the 30 minute walk there. After an hour of fruitless searching John Geeson, Stew Betts and Simon Chidwick arrived so we suddenly had a few more eyes looking! It still took another hour before Simon got onto a male Southern Emerald Damsel but it quickly slipped away. They really are elusive. In the next hour we then went on to get several views of the female although she has now lost her right hand hindwing. Each time we saw one it quickly disappeared. Still, I managed to get a few acceptable pics of what was my 33rd species of odonata for the county and well worth the effort. The pool also yielded Common Emerald Damselflies, a single Willow Emerald Damselfly, Azure Damselflies, Small Red-eyed Damselflies, Ruddy Darters, Common Darters, Emperor Dragonfly, Migrant Hawker and Brown Hawker. While sitting down having our lunch and a natter a spider sp (id awaited) and a Straw Underwing moth graced us with their presence.

Southern Emerald Damselfly (female)

Southern Emerald Damselfly (male)

Willow Emerald Damselfly

Azure Damselfly (female)

Small Red-eyed Damselfly

Spider sp

The leisurely walk back gave us plenty of Graylings, Painted Ladies, Small Copper, Gatekeeper, Small White, Red Admirals and Small Tortoiseshells. Birdwise we had 2 Common Buzzards, Sparrowhawk, 3 Kestrels and a small pasage of Swallows. John was able to help me out by pointing out a few plants - Royal Fern, Wild Horseradish, Burnet Rose (with it's distinctive black hips), Square-stalked St John's Wort and Great Water Plantain.

Burnet Rose

Staying with John and Stew we checked out the South Valley in the early afternoon and bumping in to Barry Jarvis we were soon watching 3 Pied Flycatchers on the slope just past the oaks. The same small area also held Reed Warbler, Lesser Whitethroat, Common Whitethroat and Blackcap. The slope by Hermanus had a large number of entertaining Bee-wolfs, some carrying their prey! 3 Brown Argus on the stroll back to the car finished things off nicely.

Pied Flycatchers

Bee-wolf (with prey!)

Little Owl at Redgrave & Lopham Fen, 20 August 2019

After finishing work in South Lopham I had a couple of hours to have a walk around nearby Redgrave and Lopham Fen. As expected things were quiet but livened up by a Little Owl that sat obligingly on some fencing in the middle of a paddock on the edge of the reserve. Other than that I had Reed Warbler, calling Bearded Tit and Green Woodpecker. Red Admirals were out in big numbers sharing the Hemp Agrimony with Painted Ladies, Peacocks and a single Speckled Wood.
Plant-wise there was plenty of Yellow Loosestrife, Purple Loosestrife, Scarlet Pimpernel and Water Mint.

Little Owl

Painted Lady

Winterton and The Birdfair, 17 & 18 August 2019

It was a tiring and rather hectic weekend but that's the way I like them!

On Saturday Belinda and I headed up to Winterton via Steve & Dot's house to collect some Birdfair tickets that they kindly gave us. We weren't intending going but free tickets are not to be sneezed at!

A long walk through Winterton North Dunes book-ended by 2 visits to the Dunes Cafe was very enjoyable. Graylings were out in big numbers, in fact the most I've ever seen. 120 would be conservative estimate and that was only from the paths we walked. There were still loads of Painted Ladies plus Small Heath, Small Copper, Small Tortoiseshell, Gatekeeper, Small White, Red Admiral and Peacock. I wanted to visit the pool north of the concrete blocks for Southern Emerald Damselfly but despite much searching couldn't locate the species. The pool had plenty of odonata interest though with several Small Red-eyed Damselflies, Common Emerald Damselflies, Blue-tailed Damselflies, 3 Emperor Dragonflies (including an egg-laying female and a male that caught and ate a Small Tortoiseshell!), Brown Hawker, Ruddy Darters, Common Darters, Migrant Hawkers and brief visits from a very welcome Common Hawker and a late male Broad-bodied Chaser.

Graylings

Small Heath

Small Red-eyed Damselfly

Brown Hawker

Emperor Dragonflies (m & f)

Migrant Hawker

Sunday was spent at the Birdfair enjoying catching up with plenty of old friends, a couple of talks (Birding Angola and Small Cats of South Africa), weighed down with brochures as usual and one book purchase - the Lynx guide to Birds of the West Indies with a 30% discount. I also made a useful Mexican contact who has promised to help out with info in preparation for our trip to the Yucatan in February. A couple of Red Kites were seen on the way and way back in the Peterborough area.

Broad-leaved Helleborine var. purpurea and var. chlorantha, 9 & 10 August 2019

The orchid season that just keeps giving! Normally by this time of year the orchid season is drawing to a close. It's been an unprecedented year for me in terms of recognised variations. Maybe it's because we're all starting to look more closely at individual plants as well as it being a good year but this weekend I've managed to get some nice views of 2 more variations of Broad-leaved Helleborine - var. purpurea and var. chlorantha. Both were growing within 100 meters of each other at Gunton Wood on the northern side of Lowestoft. It took 2 visits to see them armed with directions from friends. The 'purpurea' there is a very small and inconsicuous plant but close up it's a gorgeous looking thing. The 'chlorantha' is a bit bigger but rather subtle and from a distance the inside of the hypochile looks the usual dirty brown colour. Only on close inpsection could it be seen to be green. This is one of the clinching id features for this variation.

A walk to the beach at Gunton Warren on the Friday revealed some nice Sea Holly and Sheeps-bit.

At Southwold on Saturday an adult Yellow-legged Gull was on the boating lake where many Sand Martins were also feeding. There was a noticable steady passage of Swifts going south.

Broad-leaved Helleborine var. purpurea

Broad-leaved Helleborine var. chlorantha

Sea Holly

Sheeps-bit

Weekend Wanderings, 3 & 4 August 2019

Saturday saw me heading out west and by mid-morning I was hiking out onto Roydon Common in search of odonata. Along the track a small number of Keeled Skimmers were probably the last of this years individuals. A Woodlark flew over calling and I added Yellowhammer and Green Woodpecker before getting to the spot I had directions to. Despite spending a good deal of time looking I was unable to find any Black Darters which were my main target. Ruddy Darters were everywhere including a very yellow-winged individual that had me going briefly! Emerald Damselflies were obviously 'out' and I managed to find a couple of Scarce Emerald Damselflies after much searching. Emperor Dragonflies, Black-tailed Skimmers and Four-spotted Chasers were over the pond and on the way back 5 Common Buzzards circled over.

Ruddy Darter with extensive yellow in wings

Scarce Emerald Damselfly

Emerald Damseflies

My other site of the day was Dersingham Bog. Here it was a different story entirely as I found c6 Black Darters the minute I reached 'the spot'. They were all males and a couple posed nicely for photos. I then got onto a male Lesser Emperor over the pond which was a very welcome new Norfolk record for me. It was constantly being harried by a pair of Emperor Dragonflies and I lost it after a few minutes. The other highlight of a very nice walk were c8 Stonechats with at least three quarters of them being colour-ringed, including juvs.

Black Darters

Dersingham Bog Pool

On the way home I called in to Scarning Fen where I failed dismally in finding Small Red Damselfly. I may have left it too late this year as I'm sure I usually go much earlier than August. 3 Marsh Fragrant Orchids and a few Common Spotted Orchids were hanging on and a good numbers of Harebells were looking lovely.

Marsh Fragrant Orchid

Common Spotted Orchid (with one curious well marked flower!)

Sunday saw me out with Jeremy and Matt where we went to see the Violet Helleborine var. rosea. It was still present and correct but not looking as good as it was a week ago. We also managed to find 13 Violet Helleborines at the next place we checked and this time most were in flower and looking good.

Violet Helleborines

The rest of the day was spent in Belstead Brook CP on the edge of Ipswich were we couldn't locate any Brown Hairstreaks. Highlights were a bit thin on the ground but a nice fresh Brown Argus was nice and a Sparrowhawk shot through.

Rare odonata-fest at Carlton Marshes, 1 August 2019

The wardens at Suffolk Wildlife Trust's Carlton Marshes had very kindly arranged an escorted trip out into the middle of Share Marsh to see some dragonflies. Due to ongoing development work there creating new scrapes access is limited and this was an area not normally open to the public. Indeed it will all be under water very soon!

They guys even kindly drove the small group of us out there to save us walking!

Within just a couple of minutes of arrival we found our first Vagrant Emperor hawking over a small muddy pool. Then it disappeared as quickly as it had arrived and for a while we were just seeing Black-tailed Skimmers and Emperor Dragonfly enlivened by the odd sighting of Red-veined Darter. 2 Green Sandpipers and a Snipe were inadvertently disturbed while a family party of Common Whitethroats had kept me entertained by the carpark.

A flying (attached) pair of large hawkers being followed by a lone male were then picked up and led us all a merry dance for a while. Eventually they began to settle to oviposit a few times and were positively identified as Lesser Emperors. Indeed, this is the ony hawker sp where the female lays eggs while still in tandem. Some discussion ensued with reference to photographs of both rare emperors while we tried to get to grips with the ids! Lesser Emperor is clearly a larger and darker species with a 'wrap round' effect of the pale blue segment at the top of the abdomen. The eyes are a vivid pale green, Vagrant Emperor by comparison is smaller, much more sandy coloured with the pale blue patch being limited to a 'thumb-print' on the top side only. The eyes are predominantly brown.

We went on to get some fantastic views of at least 2 more Vagrant Emperors but never had one landed. Hence the rather iffy photos of which Ian's are far better than mine!

Lesser Emperors

Red-veined Darter

Vagrant Emperors (2nd 2 pics courtesy of Ian Porter - many thanks)

Common Whitethroat

The Curious Case of the Mystery Helleborine, 1 August 2019

I had a date at Carlton Marshes yesterday evening (which I'll cover in a separate blog post) so spent a very pleasant couple of hours in the afternoon at Gunton Woods on the north side of Lowestoft.

My aim was to get some photographs of Broad-leaved Helleborines in flower having given them 10 days to advance since my last visit. I found 12 plants in one small area including one of the really nice green specimens. While looking at this my eye ws drawn to a nearby plant which I immediately knew was someting odd. I snapped a few phone pics and sent them to Sean Cole via Twitter. His excited response with a few choice expletives got me very interested so I returned to get some photos of the leaves that he requested. After some offline discussion various things have been suggested including a very unusual looking Broad-leaved, Broad-leaved x Marsh, Violet, Violet x Broad-leaved and even some mention of Dark Red x Broad-leaved (?!) and comments that the lip looks like Mueller's Helleborine.

The pointed lip that is flared and frilly at the edges, open hypochile, long ovaries and odd positioning of the anther have all got people thinking! The leaves are also much narrower than BLH. My initial thought was BLH x VH but that was onsite before consulting anyone or anything!

The habitat is damp grassland under alder on the edge of mature woodland.

My pictures of it are below